Here’s part 2 of my overview of the 2026 Draft class, those players picked 11th -20th.
Here’s the two main draft tracker resources you need.
- Nationals Draft Tracker: New for this year in the 2026 tab: links to instagram and twitter for each player (which we can use to verify signing if need be), as well as links to their college stats page directly.
- MLB’s Draft Tracker
- Baseball America Transfer portal: though, none of the 11-20th college players seem to be in the portal, likely a good sign for us to get them signed.
Here’s links to major Prospect Rankings shops that I’ll reference below when assessing the “value” of the pick. Note: it’s quite rare for any of these picks to be ranked, so I’ll only include rankings if they exist.
- Baseball America Final pre-draft at 500 on 7/8/26.
- The Athletic/Keith Law final Draft top 100 big board.
- MLBPipeline final Draft Top 250 on 7/5/26
- ESPN/Kiley McDaniel Final 250 ranked board
- Fangraphs/Longenhagen final Draft Board with around 150 players ranked.
- Prospects1500 Draft Rank: Top 100 for 2026.
- Baseball prospectus final Draft board 7/8/26 (paywall)
- 11th Round, 316th overall: Weston Moss, a College Jr. RHP from Texas A&M
Ranks by major shops: BA=358
Moss was TAMU’s Sunday/#3 starter this season, posting a 5.46 ERA over 14 starts and 64.1 innings. 69/21 k/bb in 64IP. He was a reliever his first two years, then didn’t go drafted as a draft-eligible sophomore last year and moved into their rotation. Fringe average velocity, but he’s got a good frame and size (6’4″). Scouts think he can add velocity thanks to his mechanics, and can stay as a starter. He will sign, as most 11th rounders do, and may get a little extra cash to do so over the $150k standard.
Moss joins a solid group of 11th rounders that we’ve picked over the years, players who generally have had solid careers. 2025’s Moroknek has already been promoted this year, 2024’s Beeker was dominant out of the Low-A pen before getting hurt, 2022’s Luke Young is in the AAA bullpen, just promoted. 2010’s JT Arruda was a 6year org guy with a ton of AAA time, 2018’s Bartow made it to AA, etc.
- 12th Round, 346th overall: Matthew Dallas, a College Jr. LHP from Wake Forest
Ranks by major shops: none
Dallas was a major prep prospect; he started the gold medal game in 2022 for USA Baseball 18U. After sitting on the bench for Tennesee most of his freshman year he transferred to Wake Forest, where he was a rotation starter as sophomore. He was slotted into the Sunday starter spot for Wake this year, threw two games, then blew out his elbow in late March, requiring elbow surgery. The timing of the surgery is awful for Dallas: he likely cannot get back in time to even compete in the 2027 season, meaning he’d be looking at adding two full years to his college career. Given that timing, it works to the Nats’ favor; he should sign and get under the care of a pro team immediately, and when he’s healthy he’ll slot right into rookie ball instead. Tough break for him, but he can get some bonus money out of it and get on with his pro career.
- 13th Round, 376th overall: Cody Howard, a College Grad Student RHP from Texas
Ranks by major shops: none
Howard was a little-used RHP reliever by Texas his entire career. He only threw 16IP this season, and had an ERA in the 8s. It’s a weird pick at this juncture, especially for a 5th year senior/grad student. This smells like a pick made because he’s someone’s cousin, or a friend of a scout, and one I wouldn’t expect in the 13th round. I’ll be really curious to see what he signs for.
- 14th Round, 406th overall: Zack Konstantinovsky, a college Junior LHP from Rutgers
Ranks by major shops: none
Konstantinovsky (lord help me if I have to remember how to spell this guy’s name) was in Rutger’s rotation this season, mostly as their Saturday/#2 starter, and threw to a 4-5 record with a 5.48 ERA. 83/21 k/bb in 70ip, though with a .293 BAA. Not bad for the 14th round. He held his own when Rutgers went up against the likes of UCLA, and pitched admirably in the Big10 tourney before Rutgers went 2-and-out. No scouting report available anywhere; seems like a typical mid-major college starter who could have some value in the bullpen.
- 15th Round, 436th overall: Francisco Rivero, a Prep C from Canyon del Oro HS (AZ) (Arizona commit)
Ranks by major shops: none
Rivero is an interesting player. He tried an end-around gambit on the draft, moving from Arizona to Venezeula in order to try to establish IFA eligibility. The Dodgers signed him to a reported $700k bonus last year, but then MLB ruled him ineligible for the international draft, so he returned home to Arizona, re-enrolled in school, and here we are. He’s committed to Uof Arizona, but i’m guessing he wants to play pro, else he wouldn’t have tried the Venezeula gambit in the first place. I’d guess he signs for the $150k figure and comes on board.
- 16th Round, 466th overall: Anthony Murphy, a prep OF from Corona HS (CA) (LSU commit)
Ranks by major shops: BA: 159, MLB: 108, Espn: 146,
So, Murphy is essentially “Luke Williams” insurance; if negotiations with our two top HS picks Williams and/or Harris fall through, we can take that money and throw it at Murphy. He’s a significant prospect; he was the starting CF on the 2026 USA 18U national team, he’s been a starter on the powerhouse Corona HS for four years, and he’s committed to LSU, who have probably the biggest NIL budget in the sport, so you know he’s getting paid. It seems highly unlikely he comes on board. He should have been a 3rd or 4th rounder if he was going to sign; now it seems like LSU gets its leadoff hitter for the next three years as it tries to rebuild after a down 2026.
- 17th Round, 496th overall: Isaiah Galason, a prep SS from Houston County HS (GA) (Georgia Tech)
Ranks by major shops: BA: 345, Espn: 210
Galason is still a solid prep prospect, but not in the same range as Murphy. He’s still “Luke Williams” insurance though, in that he’s a top prep prospect who could be bought out of college for the right price. He’s an undersized SS with 70 speed but who BA’s scouting reports think may be a 2B longer term. Good hit tool, not a lot of power. He’s defense-first but also has a quick twitch bat that drives the ball, if not out of the park. Seems unlikely that he signs.
- 18th Round, 526th overall: Avery Ortiz, a college Jr. SS/2B from Oklahoma State.
Ranks by major shops: none
Ortiz was OSU’s starting SS … for 2 games, when he had a “lower body” injury that kept him out for nearly 2 months this season. He got back for 3 games in April, then out again until mid May. He missed a ton of time in 2025 as well, and likely is set to leave OSU unfulfilled; i can’t imagine going back for another season after he’s struggled to stay on the field all this time. He’s a sub-6-foot infielder, likely a SS/2B combo. No scouting report on him anywhere. I’d guess he’s going to sign, give pros a shot, even though he’s got eligibility left.
- 19th Round, 556th overall: Jack Brooks, a college senior OF (CF) from Oregon.
Ranks by major shops: none
Brooks has no scouting detail anywhere, and his stats don’t offer much promise: he slashed .236/.370/.391 while starting nearly every Oregon game this year in the outfield. He was a SS in high school, and i’d guess his primary skill is plus defense in the outfield. But a .236 hitter as a red-shirt junior seems like this may be a character guy, or a favorite of a local scout.
- 20th Round, 586th overall: Anson Siebert, a J2 RHP reliever (Tennessee commit)
Ranks by major shops: none
Siebert looked like he was the closer for his Juco team at Johnson County in Kansas; they went 67-3 this season. He’s been there two years, and has committed in the transfer portal to go to Tennessee. Does he want to skip a shot at the SEC for pro ball and $150K? I’m guessing this is a tougher sign; he may want a shot at better baseball. Plus, its SEC and Tennessee NIL money; probably not as much as a $150k signing bonus but it won’t be nothing. Tougher sign.
So, of the 10 guys we drafted here, i’m guessing:
- Six (6) are most likely to sign (Moss, Dallas, Howard, Konstantinovsky, Rivero, Brooks
- Two (2) are maybes (Ortiz, Seibert)
- Two are no-way signing unless negotiations blow up with our two upper-round Prep kids (Murphy, Galason)
Which would leave us likely with a 17-18 player draft class, about what we’d expect.
I wish I shared your optimism about Rivero. With the Dodgers offering him $700k not so long ago, I think it could take more than $150k to lure him away from Arizona.
I’m also puzzled by some of these picks. Unlike in the first 10 rounds where you can intentionally sign 5th year seniors to save more for other picks, there is no “savings” to be made here. So I really don’t understand drafting a guy like Cody Howard, who looks like he’d command a 4 or low 5 figure bonus. The $140k or so doesn’t go into a pool to sign Murphy, so I don’t really get why they went for such reaches here in rounds 13, 18 and 19.
After a pretty straightforward rounds 1-10, I’m struggling to make sense of these picks. It looks like a pretty big stretch to me to sign any of the HS picks, and there’s a scenario where we walk away with like 3 players of any value from these 10 picks.
However, the Nats will have certainly spoken with the HS/JUCO picks before drafting them, so I hope they’ve found 2+ guys willing to sign for a relatively low amount. Or, they’ve secured unexpectedly big savings in rounds 10 to throw at one or two of these guys. Sir Jamison Jones went in the 16th round in 2023, and a $500k bonus was enough to get him to sign.
Will
16 Jul 26 at 9:53 am
Yeah, the Howard pick is curious. Like I said in the post, it smells like a “favor” pick, which we’ve had a history of doing (drafting sons of scouts or sons of friends of executives).
Rivero: i guess we’ll see. Maybe he’s someone they think they can throw Jamison money at to sign.
Todd Boss
16 Jul 26 at 11:36 am
I’ll go back to what I posted, the new organization has a very detailed plan. maybe they see an arm slot or swing path that will work with their methods, maybe not.
in any event some of these guys will surprise, some will not pan out. the fun is in the watching.
FredMD
16 Jul 26 at 11:58 am
So maybe someone can explain this to me – these 18-20th round picks on “favors”, etc. I got the impression the UDFAs were college arms who have a legitimate possibility of being relief help. If those are guys the team might actually want, why wouldn’t you draft them 18th and at least know you’ll get them? Is it a case of having more than the $150k to offer?
kevin r
16 Jul 26 at 1:33 pm
Hassell to the Pirates for cash/PTNL. Sigh.
I know we can’t be clairvoyant and trade all the right folks at the perfect time, so I’m not bothering to wish we had moved him back in 2022 or 2023. But in 2025, he was still a prospect, not a top 100 guy like he was at peak, but a solid FV40 who was hitting OK in AAA.
And he was staring up at a depth chart that included James Wood, Dylan Crews, Jacob Young, and Daylen Lile – each of whom was either a more highly rated prospect, a 2+ WAR regular in the majors or both.
Why didn’t we trade him then? Wouldn’t we have rather have had an FV40 pitcher? For reference, FG had 40s at that time on Lara, Stuart, Kent, Brzykcy, Ribalta and Rutledge. So, obviously not a sure thing, but Hassell was not a sure thing AND probably superfluous.
I just don’t get understand why those trades don’t happen more often. Are GMs really all worried about being embarrassed by the 1 in 20 that breaks out?
And right now, we have Franklin, Petersen and Pinckney in a similar spot. It’s maddening.
SMS
16 Jul 26 at 3:21 pm
I think you want to have some replacement-level depth at AAA in case there are 2 injuries at the MLB level. Choosing which of Frankling, Petersen and Picnkney to unload is probably scary, because one of them might be Curtis Mead.
kevin r
16 Jul 26 at 3:30 pm
@KevinR: 11-20th rounders can get 150k w/o impcting bonus pool. NDFAs can get $20k max. I think its something very simple: Nats have a board, they go down the board and when they run out of players/rounds, they then start calling guys frantically to see if they’ll sign for the $20k.
Todd Boss
16 Jul 26 at 4:30 pm
Thoughts on trading Hassell too late vs too soon: these are valid complaints. We’ve had similar complaints in the past regime related to pitchers, and have seen more thana few arms leave us as “failures” then succeed elsewhere. AJ Cole, Erick Fedde, Reynaldo Lopez, etc.
The real answer is simple: its a good problem to have; nobody would have though Jacob Young was a MLB starter until he was. Now this year he’s been pushed back to a 4th OF by Lile and Crews. If we were in the acquisition/playoff hunt mode, we’d be pointing teams at our 850 OPS guys in AAA (Morales, Franklin, Pinckney, Ortiz) and be saying, “hey, here’s a guy who probably can play on your MLB team right now.
Hassell stopped hitting the moment he got traded here. I don’t know why. In 2022 he was slashing .299/.379/.467 as a 19yr old in High-A … then he hit .211/.311/.237 for OUR High-A team. why? He never really earned his promotion to AA in 2023. By 2024 he put time in at High-A for the FOURTH straight season, but then was decent enough in AA to merit a shot in AAA. Not once in this entire streak did he ever even come close to a .800 OPS figure at any level. Finally last year in AAA he looked great, earned the call-up, but has reverted to his .215/.304/.289 level this season. he was 7th or 8th on the depth chart (Wood, Crews, Lile, Young, Weimer, Franklin ahead of him, then arguable whether you’d want to call Hassell up or Pinckney if things got that far and, well, we didn’t need that many OFs.
Todd Boss
17 Jul 26 at 8:45 am
It’s easy in hindsight to second guess when a team hangs onto a player vs. trading them. I tend to cut teams a fair amount of slack in decisions like that, because unlike us they have to make those calls in real time. And they likely have considerations of which we are unaware.
As for “why they didn’t trade RHIII when he had his dead cat bounce in AA?” For me, the question is whether anyone was willing to offer an actual prospect for him even at the time. As Todd noted, he hadn’t done squat since he got to the Nats org. It’s likely that other teams noticed. Hey, at least he made the bigs and hit his first MLB HR. That’s pretty cool. As with most ex-Nats, I will wish him well except when he’s playing against the Nats.
John C.
17 Jul 26 at 1:20 pm
I get needing replacement-level fill ins if you run into injuries – that’s how Hassell got called up in the first place. But how many guys do you need? Pinckney was also in AAA in 2025. How many wins do you expect to lose by having him fill in for JY for a month instead Hassell? It can’t be much.
And, look, even if you have absolutely terrible run of multiple injuries, you can always go get a guy like Joey Wiemer for a lottery pick or less. There’s simply no need to keep the depth chart so well populated.
I’d be looking to trade everyone who fits the following criteria:
1. FV42 or lower.
2. Blocked on the ML roster by starters and one backup who are at least decent and have 3+ years of control.
3. Is not a teenager or drafted/signed in the last 18 months.
That would mean that I’d be trying to get value for Franklin, Petersen, and Pinckney, but also Yeremy Cabrera and Dashyll Tejada, who are both already 20 and frankly unlikely to force their way into our OF before they exhaust their minor league control.
I would probably only be able to move half of these guys for fair returns, but that would be so much better than just letting all them age into being MiFAs.
SMS
17 Jul 26 at 1:23 pm
@John C – fair enough about no one being willing to trade for him. Maybe Pinckney and the rest too. I don’t know what deals were or are available. I’m just going by the public prospect lists and assuming that we could have gotten approximately fair value. Maybe no one wants these players. In which case, while I’d be curious about the systemic issue in prospect valuations, it would certainly explain why the trades don’t happen.
But it’s not second guessing when I’ve been advocating them to trade from their OF prospect depth for at least 2 years.
SMS
17 Jul 26 at 1:31 pm